Re: CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians to

At 11:54 AM 9/13/01 -0400, C. Bandhauer wrote:
>In my efforts to help students humanize the "terrorists" and socially
>construct the "evil," if someone could direct me to additional sources,
>books, websites, or something on this list that would give an effective
>chronology of US bombings, embargoes, arms deals, etc. etc. and who and how
>these have affected people in the Middle East, I would be grateful.
>
>Carina

I, too, could use these data to inform my efforts to contextualize 
Tuesday's events.
As an anthropologist at a traditionally conservative school, I, too, am 
faced with Carina's dilemmas. I spent three hours in classes yesterday 
trying to guide students toward understanding or, at least, recognizing the 
political, cultural, historical and economic contexts in which Tuesdays 
events were enmeshed. Without a doubt, these were the most difficult issues 
to which I have had to teach.  I began with stories of US military 
statisticians' projections of "collateral damage" that might eventuate if 
Iraq's water supply and treatment centers were to be bombed (as I 
understand they subsequently were...against Geneva Conventions). I then 
asked if this was "terrorism" and the discussion of our our complacency and 
arrogance ensued. Some students were receptive and later thanked me by 
e-mail for presenting an alternative view. Some were obviously hostile to 
even to possibility that contexts were relevant at all and these students 
have unreflectively picked up the rhetoric infused with the appropriate 
lexicon: "barbarian vs, civilized" "they and our way of life". Others have 
recently sent me an editorial from a Canadian newspaper where the author 
talks about "America the good neighbor".  Not yet ready to return to the 
syllabus, I will distribute "America the good Neighbor" tomorrow and 
present it as received ideology and oppose that idiom with America the 
Great Satan and see if we can tease out the truths at either ends of the 
binary opposition reminding them that there is no shortage of sound 
evidence that "ordinary" humans can be induced to do horrendous things in 
particular contexts.

Obviously, none of this is easy at this particular time. Then, last night, 
I read Edward Said's piece "The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals" 
in the last issue of The Nation and my resolve was again strengthened.  I 
would appreciate any guidance in how we might effectively approach this 
issue to lead students toward the realization that now might be a good time 
to construct a different world (however naive that may sound).
Charlie Stevens